Epica - Consign to Oblivion
There's a trend in the Heavy Metal and Prog Metal industry since a certain number of years to mix heavy with classical. Some do it very well, but others not so very well. And surely there is a whole bunch that sound very similar from one to the other...
Then there is Epica, who I find stands out a little, not because they are necessarily much better than others, but because instead of sounding like metal with some classical parts, they are more like classical with some metal parts. Well, lets say lots of metal parts, but the classical is definitely more present. And the classical side sounds a lot like the instrumental parts of an epic movie. So it is intense.
Another possible downside of Symphonic Metal bands, depending on your taste, is to have a singer that sounds too operatic. This is another point that Epica scores. Simone Simmons has a very lovely voice, and even in the higher notes where she starts to sound operatic, it still sounds nice (again, for my taste anyway). The main, and probably the only, down side of the band is the grunts. The guitar player, Mark Jansen, of which I have no complaint on his guitar playing, sometimes does grunts. While it is not very often, I find it breaks the mood and sometimes borderlines the ridicule. It's OK to have some sort of deep voice to express feelings of anger or the such in specific parts of a song. But grunts? not for me... Not in this type of music anyway. But fortunately, the rest is so fantastic that I will not prevent myself from listening to any Epica songs.
My rating: * * * * ½
There's a trend in the Heavy Metal and Prog Metal industry since a certain number of years to mix heavy with classical. Some do it very well, but others not so very well. And surely there is a whole bunch that sound very similar from one to the other...
Then there is Epica, who I find stands out a little, not because they are necessarily much better than others, but because instead of sounding like metal with some classical parts, they are more like classical with some metal parts. Well, lets say lots of metal parts, but the classical is definitely more present. And the classical side sounds a lot like the instrumental parts of an epic movie. So it is intense.
Another possible downside of Symphonic Metal bands, depending on your taste, is to have a singer that sounds too operatic. This is another point that Epica scores. Simone Simmons has a very lovely voice, and even in the higher notes where she starts to sound operatic, it still sounds nice (again, for my taste anyway). The main, and probably the only, down side of the band is the grunts. The guitar player, Mark Jansen, of which I have no complaint on his guitar playing, sometimes does grunts. While it is not very often, I find it breaks the mood and sometimes borderlines the ridicule. It's OK to have some sort of deep voice to express feelings of anger or the such in specific parts of a song. But grunts? not for me... Not in this type of music anyway. But fortunately, the rest is so fantastic that I will not prevent myself from listening to any Epica songs.
My rating: * * * * ½
